This morning, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg appeared before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee to discuss foreign interference, specifically from Russia, in U.S. elections via social media.
It's both Dorsey and Sandberg's debut on Capitol Hill, and they're tasked with defending their companies and the sometimes malicious behavior that occurs on each medium.
To kick off his opening statement, Dorsey picked up his phone and said he would be tweeting out his prepared testimony.
From his Twitter account, Dorsey tweeted out 16 separate threaded tweets with the text to his statement that was read aloud to the Senate Intelligence Committee. While the tweets were clearly prepared to go beforehand, this is the first time someone live-tweeted their testimony from the hot seat at a congressional hearing.
Here is his prepared testimony:
I’m someone of very few words, and typically pretty shy, and I realize how important it is to speak up now. If it’s okay with all of you, I’d like to read you something I personally wrote as I considered these issues. I’ll also tweet this out now.
— jack (@jack) September 5, 2018
In any public space, you’ll find inspired ideas, and you’ll find lies and deception. People who want to help others and unify, and people who want to hurt others and themselves and divide. What separates a physical and digital public space is greater accessibility and velocity.
— jack (@jack) September 5, 2018
We aren’t proud of how that free and open exchange has been weaponized and used to distract and divide people, and our nation. We found ourselves unprepared and ill-equipped for the immensity of the problems we’ve acknowledged.
— jack (@jack) September 5, 2018
Our interests are aligned with the American people and this committee. If we don’t find scalable solutions to the problems we’re now seeing, we lose our business, and we continue to threaten the original privilege and liberty we were given to create Twitter in the first place.
— jack (@jack) September 5, 2018
We‘ve made significant progress recently on tactical solutions like identification of many forms of manipulation intending to artificially amplify information, more transparency around who buys ads and how they are targeted, and challenging suspicious logins and account creation.
— jack (@jack) September 5, 2018
We’ve learned from 2016 and more recently from other nation’s elections how to help protect the integrity of our elections. Better tools, stronger policy, and new partnerships are already in place. We intend to understand the efficacy of these measures to continue to get better.
— jack (@jack) September 5, 2018
Today we‘re committing to the people, and this committee, to do that work, and do it openly. We‘re here to contribute to a healthy public square, not compete to have the only one. We know that’s the only way our business thrives, and helps us all defend against these new threats.
— jack (@jack) September 5, 2018
What made it possible was the fact that I was born into a nation built by the people, for the benefit of the people. Where I could work hard to make something happen which was bigger than me. I treasure that, and will do everything in my power to protect it from harm. Thank you.
— jack (@jack) September 5, 2018
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